Online dating service Cupid rejects fake message claims
Source:Reuters Published: 2013-3-25 23:43:01
British online dating company Cupid Plc rejected as "misrepresentation and ill-informed speculation" media allegations about its methods to encourage people to buy subscriptions, sending its shares up as much as 79 percent.
The BBC said last month that members of Cupid's online dating services suspected fake "flirtatious" messages had been used to encourage free users to sign up for paid subscriptions.
The firm's websites, cupid.com and flirt.com, allow people to register for free, but they must buy a subscription to reply to messages.
The company said on Friday it had launched an investigation into "a report" about its methods, but a spokeswoman said then that this was not in response to the allegations in the BBC report.
The Edinburgh-based company's shares fell 60 percent on Friday in response to the statement. Up to Friday's close, the stock had fallen 64 percent since the BBC report on February 24.
Ukraine newspaper Kyiv Post published an article on March 15 that said Cupid had hired "motivation managers" to encourage people to buy full subscriptions.
Responding to what it said were "recent comments and market speculation," Cupid said on Monday that the managers' job was to monitor and interrogate its websites to detect technical or product issues and to moderate chat rooms and forums. They do not communicate with free members, it said.